Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and Ezekiel 16:1-14.

Vine-wood has only one purpose—to give grapes. Jesus shares the same image in John 15: “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

Sense in your spirit the pain of the Lord as that of a husband of a wife who has become the most debased of whores that ever existed. The pain of God yields not “grapes of wrath,” but grapes of love—wine for Eucharist. Our blood lives because Jesus’s was poured out for us. Greater is the redemptive blood of Jesus than all our infidelity. The tenderness of God is described with all the exuberance of the Song of Songs.

However unfaithful you have been to the call of the Lord upon your life, be less in awe about this, than in awe about the constancy of God’s love for you. Greater is God’s love than your sin. Engraft yourself on the vine again—the only way your life will bear fruit.

Ezekiel 15—16

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In the season of Easter we read Ezekiel 1—16.

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Faithfulness to You, O Lord 16:15ff

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and the reading.

The final scene in Luke’s Gospel is described again in the opening chapter of the Book of Acts. It is the Ascension of Jesus. Before Jesus departs, he does for the disciples what he did for the two on the road to Emmaus—he opens minds to understanding.

Luke’s Gospel begins and ends in the Temple. The closed, empty, inner Holy of Holies of waiting, longing, and finally God’s intervention in Gabriel, contrasts with the whole Temple. The veil of separation is torn; the new community expands the sacred space of God’s presence as they wait for the Holy Spirit. This Spirit will take them beyond the boundaries of the old Temple to endless limits of the new temple of Christ’s body.

Spend these days of waiting, in watching, longing, and hoping for what is yet to come.

Luke 24:44–53

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Staying here till clothed with pow’r v. 49

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
During Lent and Easter, we generally read from the Gospel of John.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and Numbers 1:1-4.

The Hebrew title of the Sabbath Torah portions comes from a word or words in the beginning of the portion. Since this is the first third of the first portion of the book of Numbers, Bemidbar is the Hebrew name for this entire book of the Bible. The English name comes from the Latin translation of the title of the Book in the Greek version of the Old Testament called The Septuagint. Much of the book deals with census-taking and other numberings.

Names and dates give orientation to the plans that God has for the people, such as the entry into the Promised Land and the preparation of the armies to bring this about.

Take a census—an inventory—of all that you have with you that the Lord can use as you enter into the spiritual battle for God’s people, bringing them into the Promised Land of the resurrection.

Numbers 1

This is the first of three parts of the Torah Portion Bemidbar (In the Wilderness) 
Conservative and Reform Jewish congregations read only this part this year,
as also in this Bible plan.
Here is the entire portion in all three parts.
Numbers 1:1—4:20

Learn about Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Knowing my place in Your plan v. 52

The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information